As known, a Data Center is a room which is typically adapted to host a high number of computing and/or telecommunication apparatuses, as, for example, servers, routers, switches, and the like. These apparatuses are typically mounted into racks which are arranged in rows inside the Data Center.
The computing and/or telecommunication apparatuses comprised within a Data Center, during their operation, produce heat. Such heat is typically forced to leave the apparatus through a cooling grid provided on its case. Then, the heat produced by the apparatuses warms up the air within the Data Center and the room temperature may reach very high values. In particular, the air temperature may reach values that may be critical as they may cause malfunctioning of the computing and/or telecommunication apparatuses.
Typically, a Data Center comprises systems for maintaining the room temperature below a certain value, in particular cooling systems (for instance, air-conditioning systems) for maintaining the room temperature below a predetermined threshold guaranteeing the safe and correct functioning of the computing and/or telecommunication apparatuses. In order to operate the cooling systems, is then necessary to provide the Data Center with a temperature monitoring system capable of sensing the room temperature and detecting when and where the room temperature increases above the threshold.
A temperature monitoring system for monitoring the temperature of the apparatuses comprised in a room, and, in particular, the temperature onto given surfaces within the room, may comprise a few temperature sensors located at certain positions within the room. Each sensor detects a single value of the temperature corresponding to the temperature at that location. Moreover, typically, such a detection is discrete in time. The fixed sensors are connected to a control unit that typically processes the detected temperature values and operates possible cooling systems if the temperature detected by one or more sensors increases above a safety threshold.
Alternatively, one infrared or thermographic camera may be used to monitor the temperature of a surface in a room. The thermographic camera typically acquires a thermographic scan of a surface to be monitored, the scan being a two-dimensional matrix of temperature values relative to a grid of pixels of the surface. Indeed, the thermographic camera is usually implemented as a two-dimensional matrix of temperature sensors, such as microbolometers, which are capable to detect the infrared radiation emitted by the materials present within the surface. The infrared radiation is detected by the sensors of the camera and is processed to provide the thermographic scan. The values of the infrared radiation detected by the camera are further processed to provide an image of the surface, typically a grayscale image or a false color image, in which the gray tone or the color associated to each pixel represents the temperature sample value at the corresponding position of the pixel in the surface.
US 2005/0008215 A1 discloses a system comprising an infrared camera for determining a time response of a monotonically changing characteristic of a sample by obtaining a series of sample images over time.